Author: Ad Dahiyyan

The Iraqi government has opened an investigation into the kidnapping of Israeli citizen Elizabeth Tsurkov in Baghdad in March, a government spokesperson told Reuters on Friday. Tsurkov went missing after going to Iraq for research purposes on behalf of Princeton University, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Wednesday. The office said that she is being held there by Shiite militia Kataib Hezbollah, a group backed by Iran. “Elizabeth Tsurkov is still alive and we see Iraq as responsible for her fate and well being,” the statement said, adding that the situation is being handled by the relevant bodies…

An Iraqi citizen fighting with Russia’s Wagner mercenary force was killed in Ukraine in April, Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin has said, in what is believed to be the first confirmed case of a Middle East native to have died fighting in the war. Abbas Abuthar Witwit died on April 7, a day after arriving at a Wagner hospital in the Russian-occupied eastern Ukrainian city of Luhansk, according to the Russian-language RIA FAN news site. Prigozhin confirmed to the Reuters news agency on Wednesday that he had recruited Witwit from prison in Russia, adding that he was not the first native…

The Undersecretary of the Iraqi Oil Minister, Basim Mohammed Khudair, stated on Thursday that a Turkish delegation will meet with Iraqi officials in the oil sector in Baghdad on June 19 to discuss the resumption of oil exports from northern Iraq. Khudair elaborated that the two parties agree that it is necessary to resume oil exports as soon as possible, explaining that Iraq is ready to pump 500,000 barrels per day in case both parties agree on the resumption of oil exports. Turkey halted exports of 450,000 barrels per day from northern Iraq through the Iraq-Turkey pipeline on March 25…

Jordan and Iraq have agreed to ease visa procedures and resume Iraqi oil flows to the kingdom, officials said, after a visit by the Jordanian Interior Minister to Baghdad. Relations between the two countries have been mostly frosty since the Shiite political ascendancy that followed the US-led invasion that removed Saddam Hussein in 2003. Visa restrictions have curbed cross-border traffic. Oil supplies from Iraq to Jordan have been also frequently interrupted because of political differences or price changes. The supplies account for 7 per cent of the kingdom’s demand. Jordanian Energy Ministry official Iman Awad said on May 23 that 80,000 barrels of…

Unidentified gunmen shot dead a policeman, his wife, and his son on Wednesday in a village in Iraq’s eastern province of Diyala, a security source said. The attack occurred at about 4:00 a.m. local time (0100 GMT) when armed men broke into the house of the policeman and opened fire on the family members in the village of al-Tahweila near the town of Khalis, some 70 km northeast of Baghdad, Captain Ahmed al-Zeheiri from Diyala Provincial Police, told Xinhua. The youngest son of the policeman escaped the attack with wounds, al-Zeheiri said. The attackers set fire to the house and…

Türkiye and Iraq will build a land and railroad transportation corridor stretching from the Iraqi province of Basra to the Turkish border, Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday. “We have tasked our minister friends, who will carry out the works for materializing the Development Road Project, extending from Basra to Türkiye,” Erdogan said at a joint press conference with visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani. “I believe that we will transform the Development Road Project into the new Silk Road of our region,” the Turkish president said. Moreover, Türkiye will increase the amount of water released from…

The United States broke Iraq — U.S. forces succeeded in the campaign 20 years ago to topple the Iraqi regime, shocking and awing their way to Baghdad in a matter of days, but what followed turned into a debacle for the U.S. grand strategy, and a traumatic nightmare for much of the Iraqi society, said an article published by The Washington Post on Monday. “The initial glimmers of hope and optimism felt by some Iraqis faded as a dysfunctional, unstable status quo took root, shaped far too often by sectarian enmities and kleptocratic elites,” said the article. “The war, driven…

Though 20 years have passed since the United States launched a blatant invasion into the sovereign state of Iraq, justice has not been done for Iraq and its people, many of whom are still suffering from the pain created by the unjust war. During the more than eight-year war and ensuing years of violence after the 2011 U.S. pullout, more than 200,000 civilians were killed and over 9 million others displaced in Iraq. Much of the country’s infrastructure was also destroyed during the relentless bombings launched by the U.S.-led coalition. As a result, Iraq, a rich country before the invasion,…

Two decades after the United States invaded Iraq, 61 percent of Americans do not believe the country made the right decision by invading Iraq, according to a new Axios/Ipsos poll. “The chaos and destruction that followed the invasion have made a generation of Americans and their leaders more skeptical of the use of military force overseas, in particular in the Middle East,” said an Axios report of the poll published last week. The invasion toppled a “brutal dictator” but “sparked 20 years of instability in Iraq, and damaged America’s standing in the world,” it noted. On March 17, 2003, then…

Anti-war organizations held rallies in Los Angeles and San Diego on Saturday in the run-up to the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which started on March 20, 2003. The gathering came amid nationwide anti-war rallies organized by Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER Coalition), a U.S.-based protest umbrella group consisting of many anti-war and civil rights organizations. “We felt today is a good point to get together with younger people to discuss the issues that are involved. It commemorates the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq,” Gary Butterfield, a veteran, told Xinhua.…